30,000 pieces, give or take, depending on the model; that’s the average number of parts in a car from the smallest nut and bolt to the frame. Multiplied by the billion-plus cars that exist in the world and the manufacturing process to get all those parts seems endless. Then consider every other industry that needs parts manufactured, from your phone to kitchen appliances to airplanes, the manufacturing scale is massive.

Today, many of the pieces are digitally manufactured, the machine being programmed to proper specifications to make parts at scale. However, only geometry of the machining process is considered in this process. Problems still exist around poor quality, lengthy iterations, and wasted consumption, all resulting in more money, energy, and CO2e emissions spent by machining companies. Startup Productive Machines has developed a solution: a platform to help machining companies produce parts cheaper, faster, and at a

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Steel is the most common structural material used in everything around us; buildings, cars, and machinery to name a few. It is a necessary, but hazardous industry. Steel production accounts for 7-9% of all global CO2 emissions annually.

While technology has seen major advancements across industries, the process of steelmaking has remained much the same for thousands of years. Mix iron and coal within a blast furnace to create molten iron. Followed by a process to remove impurities, which results in a significant amount of carbon byproduct. With the continuing growth of steel production, a major contributor to the climate crisis, we are left to wonder who will be tackling the next generation of changes in this industry?

Boston Metal is a startup with the answer. The team is transforming the steel industry with their groundbreaking technology aimed at producing steel in a greener and cheaper way. Spun out of MIT, the patented

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“There’s a saying entrepreneurs live by—Do more than anyone thought possible with less than anyone thought necessary.” These are the words of Dr. Cheri Ackerman, Co-founder and CEO of Boston-based Concerto Biosciences, as she describes her company’s thinking. She and her two cofounders, Dr. Jared Kehe and Dr. Bernardo Cervantes, are doing just that. With the help of an ingenious new technology platform, they are reimagining how humanity interacts with microbes.

MICROBES – IN US, ON US, AND AROUND US

Microbes are everywhere around us: in the soil, in air that we breathe, and all over the human body. Typically, microbes are thought of as harmful. Often, we strive to eradicate the bacteria or “germs” that make us sick with sanitizers or antibiotics.

Millions of microbes form invisible networks all around us that shape the health of our bodies and environments. (Image

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Today’s blog post was guest written by Michael Hayes from MathWorks’ Startup Marketing Team.

Safety is a vital aspect of product development across many industries, perhaps none more so than Medical Devices. There are intense certification requirements specific to the medical field. Furthermore, one of the primary barriers to entry for new medical devices is establishing trust with patients and healthcare providers. For startup companies entering this space, safety must be designed into their product at the outset. To address this trend, MathWorks recently hosted a virtual roundtable: Developing Next Generation Safety Critical Medical Devices

The roundtable was facilitated by MathWorks Medical Device Industry Manager, Kirthi Devleker, and featured expert panelists from three diverse Medical Device companies. They shared their approaches, lessons learned, and best practices pertaining to safety and compliance. Topics included risk management, simulation,

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As the world moves to combat the imminent threat of climate change, we are seeing an innovation charge for cleaner technology sources. Startups are often at the forefront of some of these new sources of power like wave or kite-driven energy sources, in addition to modernizing existing clean energy solutions like solar power. However, even with these new sources available, the issues of utilizing them within the traditional, centralized grid remain. Take, for example, the Texas energy crisis this past winter. Power generation from both natural gas and wind went offline due to freezing temperatures. In order to prevent a catastrophic collapse of the grid, forced power shut-offs were implemented leaving hundreds of thousands of people without power and in the cold.

Enter Heila Technologies, a Massachusetts-based startup, working to revolutionize the grid as we know it. In this startup short, hear from Heila CEO, Francisco Morocz, as he

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You Wu is currently the Robotics and Autonomous System Industry Manager at MathWorks where he works on strategies to expand MathWorks products’ usage among robotics developers. Unforeseen, I met You a few years ago when he was operating under a different mindset, one of an inspired and driven startup founder. You was working out of a lab at MIT when we met to discuss his use of MATLAB and how MathWorks Startup Program could support his then company, WatchTower Robotics. Fast-forward to today, and we are brought back together as we hear You’s tips from a founder and why entrepreneurs should choose MATLAB for startups.

Madeline: Can you tell the audience about Watchtower Robotics?
You: Watchtower Robotics produced a robot to inspect underground water pipes, locating leaks for municipal utilities. We built those robots and deployed them into water pipes in Massachusetts, Texas, Virginia and Indiana. This experience was all I wished for as an engineer; design and develop

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Women are making swift progress in the startup ecosystem with over 250 million female entrepreneurs around the world [1]. While the field continues to be male-dominated, many influential people are recognizing the power and opportunity women in the space provide. In the U.S., the number of women-owned firms has increased 114% in the past 20 years [2] to four out of ten businesses [3]. However, the progress is not consistent across geographies. Europe has the lowest early-stage female involvement in entrepreneurship [4] and in India, 15 million women-owned enterprises make up only 20% of all businesses in the country [5]. The scaling and growth of these female-led businesses could have a major economic impact. According to the Bain & Company report, it is estimated that this segment could create up to 170 million jobs in India over the next decade alone.

On Women’s Day 2021, MathWorks India announced an event to bring focus on women entrepreneurs. With an all-women panel

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Trucks are an essential part of our world; transporting goods around the clock, from massive turbine blades to coffee and tea for your morning caffeine fix. These deliveries are expected to increase by 40% by 2045. As much as we can be grateful for next-day delivery, it comes at an environmental cost.

In the United States, transportation is the largest contributor of greenhouse gas emissions, accounting for around 28% according to the EPA and almost a quarter of that is attributed to trucking. Most of the emissions come from burning petroleum-based fuel used to power the trucks, often from a truck that isn’t even moving. Overnight idling of trucks accounts for 11 million tons of CO2 emissions, and it comes at a major expense of $3 billion of unnecessary fuel burning.

Blackburn Energy, a startup based in the Greater Boston area, is on a mission to help solve these problems by electrifying everything possible on diesel trucks.

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Vita Inclinata has been driven by its mission since its inception; “to ensure a lack of technology, will never be the difference between life and death.” Inspired by the tragic outcome of a failed helicopter rescue and sparked out of a conversation between a student and his professor, the team has developed a system to stabilize swinging payloads. The technology can be applied to a range of dangerous industry applications including helicopter rescue operations, crane cargo loads, and forest fire fighting, all with the same end goal – to improve safety.

In just under a decade, the Vita team has worked tirelessly to progress from idea, to prototype, to the deployment of their system. In this feature video, Derek Sikora, Vita’s CTO and co-founder, gives insight into how they adopted Model-Based Design for their development with the support of MathWorks startup program.

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Reflect on a moment at a holiday gathering or networking event. With multiple people talking and some music humming in the background, do you ever wonder how it is possible to tune that all out and focus on a private conversation? According to the American Academy of Audiology, this is due to “the cocktail party effect”; a phenomenon described as the “ability to focus one’s attention on a particular stimulus while filtering out a range of other stimuli.”

Now think about a listening device that you’re trying to command with your voice during the gathering. Likewise, they need to recognize and capture your voice in order to play the song you’ve requested.

The startup company, Yobe, has created a patented approach for such applications. Using a combination of signal processing, advanced artificial intelligence, and broadcast studio techniques, they can identify unique voice biometrics and track individuals even within noisy

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